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Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

chezmoi.io

31–40 of 62 posts

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#31
post #21

I just use a boring python-script for this job, which links everything from my repo to the correct location. This has the benefit that I can also add some personal tweak to some configs, like linking my userchrome from Firefox to my profile. Similar solution for packages and other settings, just a bunch of shell script doing stuff. I tried using Ansible in the past, but maintaining a rarely used tool with many update…

I doubt the scripts are simple, it’s not easy to make such things idempotent.

Depends on your definition of simple. There is not that much which can go wrong.

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#32
post #12

Gave it a try a few months ago and realized I can't stomach its approach of copying everything into its own folder and editing your configs over there. I'd rather tell the tool to watch for changes in my local files. Yes, most of them are in .config, so no big change, but still... Matter of habbit I guess.

I felt the same way and pared down the workflow. I edit my files directly. Then when done, I do a single `chezmoi add`, which pushes it to the git repo because I have auto commit/push enabled in ~/.config/chezmoi/chezmoi.toml

    [git]
      autoCommit = true
      autoPush = true

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#33

Hmmz so with Chezmoi you can't edit your files directly... not very convenient. I'd rather use a bare Git repository : - https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles - https://www.ackama.com/what-we-think/the-best-way-to-store-y...

That's why I use https://yadm.io

It's basically a helper for a bare git repository plus some added features.

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#34
> Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely.

> $ sh -c "$(curl -fsLS https://chezmoi.io/get)" -- init --apply $GITHUB_USERNAME

That this is even suggested as an installation command means that they might as well strike "securely" from the tagline. For someone interested in security the foul odor that this line emits is enough to make me stop reading.

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#35

> Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely. > $ sh -c "$(curl -fsLS https://chezmoi.io/get )" -- init --apply $GITHUB_USERNAME That this is even suggested as an installation command means that they might as well strike "securely" from the tagline. For someone interested in security the foul odor that this line emits is enough to make me stop reading.

I don't get the issue here.

This command basically downloads and execute something. Yes, it requires you to trust the author but that's what you always need to do anyway alas you don't read and compile yourself anything you install on your computer.

Or did I miss something ?

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#36
post #5

I just use Ansible for this purpose. All my work machines are set up using a single, parameterized Ansible playbook.

Avoiding Ansible is precisely why I use chezmoi.

Unfortunately I still have to use Ansible for stuff that isn't my dotfiles, but the less Ansible, the better. It feels like whatever use cases I have for Ansible are weird and not what other people are doing, because everything I try to do is difficult and poorly documented. For example, when I try to spin up a machine running Alpine Linux using Ansible, I've encountered all sorts of strange bugs, some of which I've reported and are (being) fixed, but it boggles my mind that what I thought would be really basic stuff, like setting the hostname or the timezone, is buggy as heck.

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#37
post #35

> Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely. > $ sh -c "$(curl -fsLS https://chezmoi.io/get )" -- init --apply $GITHUB_USERNAME That this is even suggested as an installation command means that they might as well strike "securely" from the tagline. For someone interested in security the foul odor that this line emits is enough to make me stop reading.

I don't get the issue here. This command basically downloads and execute something. Yes, it requires you to trust the author but that's what you always need to do anyway alas you don't read and compile yourself anything you install on your computer. Or did I miss something ?

Yes, the trust but verify step where you are supposed to check that the script you received is the one you expected.

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#39
post #22

Chezmoi has some interesting features, that go beyond simply managing dot-files in a Git-repo, that allows it too deepen in a way that makes it quite capable: - templating for any configuration file built-in - support for password managers - can download and unpack an archive, or clone a repo, and refresh it e.g. once a week - run scripts when applying config changes (either once, or every time) - can handle config f…

Honestly, that's quite the list. From the title and even the home page, it looks like yet another dotfiles manager, but it looks like it can replace what I've gotten with half-baked scripts. Integration with password managers is great!

Re: Chezmoi – Manage your dotfiles across multiple diverse machines, securely

#40
Old school guy here; there's something about using Github (as opposed to merely git) that just feels wrong. While I get the flipside, might be cool to rifle through somebody elses dotfiles to see how they do things, having your big ol' batch of configs on the "site designed for public consumption" seems weird.

Especially in light of Microsoft et al perhaps not always playing nice here (see, e.g. youtube-dl)

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